A serious, professional series has some kind of middle-term agreement with the competitors to make sure to avoid this kind of situations (what Citroen and Lada did or the VW teams did in WEC).

Also a serious and professional series share back the majority of their income (money from broadcasting, advertisment, track license money) to the competitors.

Without wanting to be the advocate of the current WTCC managament: this is completely not true.

First: it is up to a manufacturer to decided the length of their participation. I Volvo decides to commit for 2 years you cannot force a 4 years contract on them. These days promoters are happy if a manufacturer want to run a full-works program in their championship, so don't think they can argue with them a lot about the length...

Second: look at Porsche. They had a contract for 2018 but still they decided to stop a year earlier. If a manufacturer want to go, it will go, even is there is a contract.

It is an even greater bullshit to think that WTCC does not give back a lot of their money to the series. They do!

One day EEL is criticized for paying to teams or giving them financial dispensations to keep them, than on the other day for not doing that. I also see a lot of mistakes from the current management but this is completely not fair.

TC1 has been a total unmitigated disaster for the WTCC. Firstly it priced a load of privateers out of the series, and then Citroen screws over Honda and Lada by forcing them to build new cars a season earlier than planned. I get that S2000 was getting a bit long in the tooth, but to go for an even more expensive and aero-dependent spec of car seemed daft back then and looks even worse now.

Incidentally, can I just add that homologation is a stupid, stupid idea. If someone wants to build a car to the set of rules, they should be allowed to, ala BTCC.

Yes, in hindsight. But I don't remember many people warning WTCC not to introduce TC1 in 2014.

BTW without TC1 WTCC would be dead by now. No manufacturer was interested in S2000 anymore, they could remain a world championship in 2012 because BMW and SUNRED paid the manufacturer entry fee for their customers, and they were accepted as "works". WTCC needed Citroen, needed Sebastien Loeb... And the capitalized on that situation.

Yes, TC1 was a dead end in hindsight but the series had to make a step in 2014.

I think they have to try to convince the Volvo to stay at least for an another season. Maybe they can oil it with some money.

But no one said Volvo will quit after 2017!!! There were news that they will not be racing with a petrol car "for a long time". I am sure if WTCC decides to keep TC1 for 2018 Volvo will stay for another year.

Going to be unpopular for saying this, but seeing the interest in Formula-E I'd say the electric future is a huge opportunity for the current forms of motorsports. It's the lack of willingness of the public to adapt to new times thats the real threat.

You have a good point. There is certainly resistance from the "old school" motorsport fans. I understand manufacturers have interest in Formula E but personaly currently it doesn't interest me. One part of this is because in general I have not much interest in single seaters, I prefer tin tops. On the other hand the current technology that is used isn't very interesting. Also in general I don't like cars and format of the series. To some extent it's a shame DTM and SuperGT don't go the full electric route.

I think it's too early for a electric touring car series with open tech rules and a series with multiple manufacturers using spec electric engine and batteries isn't very interesting for manufacturers. First step would be one make series (or VAG cup with same powertrain). Jaguar has announced such series.

Without wanting to be the advocate of the current WTCC managament: this is completely not true.

First: it is up to a manufacturer to decided the length of their participation. I Volvo decides to commit for 2 years you cannot force a 4 years contract on them. These days promoters are happy if a manufacturer want to run a full-works program in their championship, so don't think they can argue with them a lot about the length...

Second: look at Porsche. They had a contract for 2018 but still they decided to stop a year earlier. If a manufacturer want to go, it will go, even is there is a contract.

It is an even greater bullshit to think that WTCC does not give back a lot of their money to the series. They do!

One day EEL is criticized for paying to teams or giving them financial dispensations to keep them, than on the other day for not doing that. I also see a lot of mistakes from the current management but this is completely not fair.

Hi Lanti!

A wrote a longer relply in your website, but i try to summerize that in english here:

Stronger series - F1-FOM/MotoGP-DORNA has the power to make middle term deals with factories and force them. Obviously Eurosport Events or ACO has not got such a power/potency.

Based on the privateers situation i think EE shares only a small margin of its revenue with the competitors. I guess - only guess, because I don't find sources - EE have to have more than 20-25 million Euro/USD revenue from WTCC in a single season.

The 10 track pays a license charge/license fee for the weekends, and in some years ago I read that was more than a million euro. EE also has money from the trackside advertising and from title sponsors + the television rights also represents a decent amount of money - it's hard to say the exact value, because the main media partner is the organizer itself, so we could only just guess the market value of the TV rights- but all in all I THINK EE should be at least 20-25 million
euro/USD per year from WTCC, and imho they should share at least half of them with the competitors, but we officialy can know only one thing: competitors has to pay for the EE about 40-50 000 Euro/season for racing.

EE might be pay for some teams, but I THINK it should based on ad-hoc decisions, not on some well planned system and it's not public. In F1 or Premier League all of these informations are public.

F1 and Premier League shares back most of their revenue to the teams, because the make them the money. So it's not a alms or givts, it is a well deserved money for wich the teams work for.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanti

But no one said Volvo will quit after 2017!!! There were news that they will not be racing with a petrol car "for a long time". I am sure if WTCC decides to keep TC1 for 2018 Volvo will stay for another year.